It's nothinnoting that MHL was positioned as a single cable charging + video solution, but it requires the TV to be MHL equipped. I haven't run across any myself but I do think that's the optional forward-looking solution... They just threw it out there before there were any MHL equipped TVs in the market, chicken and egg thing I guess.

I'm not sure what benefit Slim Port provides over the old micro HDMI + USB discrete ports, other than eliminating one port... You still need either one or two cables depending on whether you wanna charge, and micro HDMI to HDMI adapters were cheap and plentiful (and easy to carry if you wanted to use existing HDMI cables anywhere).

It almost seems like Slimport would've been ideal had it come as an interim solution BEFORE MHL, but if it slows down MHL adoption I feel like we're going backwards. Thanks for shedding some light on this tho.

P.S. Is Miracast working on any of Netgear's streaming/WiDi boxes yet?Reply

Unfortunately, I cannot back my words here because of the lack of availability of the specs.

MHL and SlimPort do basically the same with multiplexing the differential stream on the microUSB connector. MHL is linked to HDMI while SlimPort is linked to DisplayPort. Apart from that, things look similar. MHL has a lot of companies backing that up, while SlimPort does not. It looks like SlimPort is using some sort of draft myDP specification at the moment - and we know how good the situation was with draft 802.11n.

TVs with MHL ports were the hit last Christmas - mostly Samsung TVs - so these TVs should be able to provide the needed power. However, the cables that are sold by the phone companies are microUSB to HDMI, that is, MHL Dongles. The reason is easy to understand: these cables are compatible with most TV sets. As you can see, this thing is more compatible by making it harder to work with. I wonder how easy it is to actually buy a proper cable that does not require external power and does not translate the signals into HDMI. And I wonder what bad feeling would I have if I go to a friend's home, plug my MHL cable and nothing works because his set does not work with MHL directly.

I need to say, in order to defend MHL somewhat, that the latest bunch of devices by Silicon Image provide 1080p@60Hz too.

Miracast / WiDi, as far as I know, is something like VNC over the network, probably using H264. I wonder how good or bad that would be for streaming video. If I got this right, if you want to watch a video from the mobile phone, the phone will be uncompressed and Miracast will recompress it on the fly, worsening the quality of the video. From my point of view, DLNA may be better quality wise, although I know it is a pain to communicate devices sometimes.Reply

"Mobility DisplayPort (MYDP) is a standard that has been proposed by ST to VESA that also embeds the AUX channel onto a single wire. Refer to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gwfY_KNsMg&fea... . SlimPort products are compatible with devices that comply with MYDP (proposed at the time of this writing)."

At first, you need to carry a dongle along with you... So, if not many households have a micro HDMI cable available, you might carry a micro HDMI cable with you as well as you can carry a dongle...

Stand alone micro HDMI port still is much better as it simply allows you to use your tablet/phone USB port while using an external display. This simply is not possible with MHL, and by the diagrams, also it is not possible with Slimport, unless you use special micro USB connectors (i.e.: Galaxy S3) which are not standard across devices, that have more than the usual 5 pins, then MHL/Slimport signals go on the extra pins and there is no switching between video and USB. I believe that both standards should have started with those specs, so all devices and MHL/Slimport adapters would be ready for this, but that is not true, you already have MHL adapters and Slimport adapters that do not allow you to use USB and video output at the same time....Reply

So with the Nexus 4 you only get 720p60? Isn't it possible to push real 1080p to the TV (maybe by disabling the phone's screen first)? If that's the case that's too bad. I wanted to watch family pictures on the TV with this, but if it's only 720p I will pass thank you.Reply

Hi Brian, Thanks for the informative write up. I just got my Nexus 4 and have realized that USB OTG does not work with it. Do you think this is a bug or do you think that since OTG needs pin 4 tied to ground, it's impossible for a phone to support SlimPort and USB OTG?

I own a nexus 7 and usb OTG works on the stock rom, at least for several input devices I've tested recently. I do seem to remember there might have been an bug with OTG in some previous jelly bean revision preventing it from working. I can say with 100% certainty that USB OTG works with under the latest android version (4.2.1) with my nexus 7.

From what I read, it seems to also mostly work on a stock nexus 10 (writing to mass storage devices however seems to require some kernel/rom tweaking).

I was surprised when OTG didn't work in any way with my nexus 4 (device not supplying 5v when pins 4,5 shorted) and after reading your article I suspected a slimport conflict. However, after looking a little bit at the slimport spec. sheet, it seems in theory the standard can work in harmony with USB OTG. Although I'm still not convinced slimport is not interfering in the case of the nexus 4.

So I guess I'm still searching for answers as to why OTG doesn't work on my nexus 4.Reply

I think he may have been referring to mass storage device access thru USB OTG (which definitely isn't supported out of the box unless a recent update has changed matters). I guess they support OTG to varying degrees? (yes for HID peripherals & no for storage?) That's bizarre...Reply

If you install custom ROM and then enable USB OTG, would you be able to use it together with this adapter? What I mean is you plug USB OTG to the microUSB slot on the adapter (where you supposed to plug your charger).Reply

I just tested the Slimport-to-VGA on 2 VGA displays with my Nexus 4 and both were fails (The displays work, but thy don't get the connection from the phone). It just doesn't work. I'm curious to understand how the reviewer was able to get it to work for them. Alternatively, I have tested my Nexus 4 with a Sliport-to-HDMI and it worked perfectly without issue. Reply